Recent PGA Tour success hurts long putter

Recent PGA Tour wins could doom long putter

ANCASTER, Ont. — A caddy for a 10-year pro was standing on the side of the practice green at Hamilton Golf and Country Club on Tuesday afternoon, and he pulled a TaylorMade belly putter from one of the bags of equipment that are scattered about to entice prospective PGA users.

He stood over an imaginary ball, took a few strokes, shook his head slightly and muttered, to no one in particular, “It’s cheating.”

This is a not uncommon sentiment among players, loopers and coaches on the PGA Tour, and one that has taken on added significance with the news on Monday that discussions about whether to ban long putters are, according to R&A chief executive Peter Dawson, “firmly back on the radar.”

So I chased the caddy down and asked him about his mutterings. He didn’t want to be seen as speaking for his pro — a wise discretion, admittedly — but when it was suggested that opinion was mixed on a possible ban, he smiled.

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“Most of the players who are supportive of long putters are guys who use them,” he said. “Nobody else is.”

Asked if he really thought that the long putter, which is anchored to the body either at the chest or belly, gives a decided advantage to players who use it, he said he couldn’t say for sure.

“So much of putting is mental,” he said. “But as far getting the ball started on a line, which is all any of these guys need, it helps.”

It seems to be helping in ever more obvious ways. Keegan Bradley won the PGA Championship with one last year, becoming the first player to bank a major with a broomstick. Then Webb Simpson won the U.S. Open with one this year. And on Sunday, Ernie Els used a belly putter to reel in the collapsing Adam Scott, himself a long-putter convert, and win the British Open. That’s three long-putter wins in four majors. Els, who arrived in Ancaster for the RBC Canadian Open on Tuesday, having popped down to London for a quick celebration with his family before crossing the ocean and honouring his commitment to play here, has been bluntly honest about how the belly putter has helped cure his putting woes.

“As long as it’s legal, I’ll keep cheating like the rest of them,” he said last year.

This kind of talk has been going on for years — although not usually by those using long putters — but the spurt of big wins may force the issue. Dawson, who said that his governing body and the USGA are simply in renewed discussions about what to do about long putters, added a decision is likely in “a few months,” although it wouldn’t take effect until 2016.

Graham DeLaet, the third-year PGA pro from Saskatchewan, used a long putter for two years, then switched back to a conventional putter about a year and a half ago. This week, he has the long putter back in the bag.

“I had two weeks off coming into this week, and just took it out to kind of mess around and was shooting good scores, making a lot of putts, making a lot of birdies.”

And if they are banned? “We all grew up using short putters, so I think it won’t be that big a deal to go back to switch back to it,” DeLaet said. “I can see the argument both ways, but right now I’m just trying to get the ball in the hole.”

But many other players have firmer views on the issue.

Brandt Snedeker, the three-time Tour winner from Nashville who was leading after two rounds at the British Open last week before finishing in a tie for third, said on Tuesday that “as a guy who putts it pretty good, of course I would like to see a [change] of the rule.”

There’s a rule that prevents anchoring of the club to the body, Snedeker noted, but “they’ve chosen not to enforce it.” (The grey area here is whether holding a club against the body counts as anchoring it. Tucking the handle in your belt obviously would.)

“I would love to see the putter be the shortest club in your bag,” said Snedeker, echoing a suggestion that Tiger Woods offered this season. “I feel like when you’re under pressure and under stress on the 72nd hole and you gotta make a five‑footer, I want to know how your hands feel,” Snedeker said Tuesday. “I don’t want that putter stuck against your body. It obviously takes nerves out of it. Otherwise, guys wouldn’t be doing it. That’s me from my point of view. Now, if I had a belly putter in my hand, if I had a long putter, it would be completely different.”

Snedeker admitted it would be tough for someone like South African Tim Clark, who has used a long putter throughout his pro career, to change now.

“This is telling guys, ‘You’ve gotta completely change the way you thought about your whole putting for the last 15 years,’ ” he said.

Which is why it hasn’t happened. Golf’s governing bodies have been trying to figure out how to extract themselves from this mess like it’s a plugged lie in a sod-wall bunker.

“The USGA and R&A, they got themselves in the situation, so they gotta figure a way out of it,” Snedeker said.